BISHOP ASBURY.

"A workman that needeth not to be ashamed." St. Paul.

To have enjoyed the friendship of the great and good Asbury may well be considered a distinguished honor-his autographs on the ordination certificates of the fathers of the church are precious mementoes, and more satisfactory authentications of their ministry than could be the sign manual of any pope, archbishop, or other supposed successor of the apostles. If there are any episcopal seats in heaven, assuredly there are few prelates since St. Paul who will sit above Francis Asbury.

His marked characteristics are few, but remarkably strong. They are not painted, in our conception of his character, but sculptured. He was altogether a most wonderful man. Born in lowly circumstances, called early to the ministry, and when in it burdened with labors truly amazing, he had but little opportunity for mental cultivation. Yet he acquired. (how, is inconceivable) a knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; he could read them, and consulted them in studying the sacred text. He was also singularly familiar with history,

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especially ecclesiastical history. Church polity, in all its varieties, ancient and modern, he had studied thoroughly, and referred to constantly. In mental and moral science he was more than a mere reader. In natural philosophy he was generally accurate. He was a more extensive reader than is generally supposed. He had no knowledge of mathematics, and his arithmetic was altogether originallogical, not mechanical. He possessed an almost intuitive discernment of human character, and was a remarkable physiognomist. had frequently surprised a whole conference by stating the character of candidates whom he had never seen before. He had a rare facility in contracting the acquaintance of strangers. He was frequently humorous, happy at repartee, and always ready for any labor, however onerous or sudden. An illustration occurs to my memory. At the time my friend E. H. was stationed in B, knowing that he would spend a night there on his way to the L-Conference, he made arrangements for him to preach an anniversary sermon for a charitable society just struggling into life, and advertised the appointment as extensively as possible in the public prints. Toward evening the old bishop arrived, wearied with a long and tedious jour-||

ney. At an early hour the house was crowded -the services commenced. He arose, and read for his text 2 Corinthians viii, 8, "I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love." The felicity of the text and of the discourse was universally observed. If the classical motto is true, Perseverantia vincit omnia, (Perseverance conquers all things,) he was capable of greatness in any department of human ambition, for his great master trait was a firmness of purpose which no hostility could shake and no allurement seduce. When once he entered on his immense labors in America, his destiny was fixed. His indomitable energy bore him onward through journeys long and perilous, labors arduous and incessant, privations and vexations which none of his European coadjutors knew, and this, not during a brief interval of youthful zeal, or of circumstances auspicious to an ardent ambition, but through all possible discouragements, and through the infirmities of age, when it was necessary to assist him to and from his carriage, and when he could no longer stand, but sat in the pulpit,-till, in fine, he dropped exhausted into the grave. He was eminently a man of one work, and in that work he was im

pelled by a quenchless zeal, which allowed no leisure for any other consideration. It drew him away from his native land and parental home, and permitted no return. It induced him to forego the felicities of domestic life, and to pass through a long career without a local habitation or a resting place. He was a noble example of an evangelical bishop. He possessed all the personal dignity of the episcopal office, without any of the assumed honors and luxurious exemptions which are usually connected with it. While he directed with inflexible authority the ministerial host of his vast diocese, he transcended the meanest of them in sufferings, labors, and journeyings. Fifty-five years he was a preacher, and forty-five of them he spent on our continent. It has been estimated that he sat in two hundred and twentyfour annual conferences, and consecrated about four thousand ministers.

I have said that his labors and sufferings were unequaled by those of his transatlantic coadjutors. He traveled usually about six thousand miles a year, which exceeded the journeyings of Wesley. Wesley's field was much less extended, and much more comfortable in every respect. He was in his own country-had the best facilities for traveling—

and moved through a nation supplied with all. the conveniences of life. Asbury was a foreigner, and lived among us at a period of profound antipathy toward his native land; but when most others fled from the field he remained, even though concealment was necessary. The country was new and vast, yet he traveled over its length and breadth, now through its older settlements, and then along its frontier lines, climbing mountains, fording streams, sleeping under the trees of the forest, or finding shelter for his wearied frame in log cabins.

Whitefield, though he traveled over the same continent, confined himself to its Atlantic cities, where every convenience was lavishly afforded him. Asbury pushed his course to the remotest frontier, traveling frequently with the emigrating caravan for protection from the savage, and thanking God for the coarse fare which was afforded him in the hut of the back-woodsman. Whitefield's theological opinions agreed with the errors of the dominant churches, and conciliated their favor. Asbury's were detested by them as among the worst forms of heresy. Methodism had commenced before his arrival on our continent, and no doubt would have prospered more or less, but to his energy